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Comment by alkonaut | Hacker News Reader

In the case of Instagram: You show the videos from the people you follow on instagram, then no more short videos at all. Possibly a search box.

If you search on youtube then it can rank any way it wants, just not use e.g. anything from the viewing history. No "related videos" column. That's what YouTube used to be. But YouTube (unlike TikTok) worked well before it had rabbit holes.

For TikTok the situation is worse. Their whole app just doesn't exist unless you have the custom feeds. This would make YouTube be 2010 youtube, Instagram be 2010 Instagram (great!) but it would effectively be a ban of TikTok's whole functionality (again, great!).

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I think it would be great if all of these apps had an option to function like you propose: Your feed is a simple view of people you’ve chosen to follow. The end.

Then all of the people who have trouble with self-control on infinite feeds can enable this mode, and everyone who wants the recommendation algorithm can leave it on.

This is the optimal outcome that actually serves everyone’s personal goals for using these platforms. If we get into a conversation where some are demanding we don’t allow anyone to use a recommendation algorithm because they feel the need to control what other people see, that’s a different conversation. That conversation usually reveals other motives, like when people defend the algorithm sites they view (Hacker News, Reddit, whatever) but targets sites they don’t like TikTok.

Instagram and Facebook both have such features. They’re hidden, though. With Instagram you tap the logo in the top middle of the app and choose “Following”. With Facebook it’s hidden away under the “Feeds” section in the app.

I’d love for there to be an option to have them as default. It’s obvious ($$$) why they won’t do that unless forced to by regulators.

Why do you assume the recommendation algorithm should be the default? The algorithm is the dangerous thing, THAT should be the opt-in mode not the other way around.

IMO they should not only be opt-in, but should actually be required to publicly list the parameters and weights they’re using and allow users to tune those weights.

Sure, if that makes the angry mob happy then let’s make it default. Then every new user can click the button once and be back to the app they expect.

> IMO they should not only be opt-in, but should actually be required to publicly list the parameters and weights they’re using and allow users to tune those weights.

I wonder how many people here know that many of the popular apps have rolled out finer controls for recommendation algorithms so you can do this. On Instagram you can go in and see the topics your recommendation algorithm picked up and modify them manually if you like.

I think the goalposts will just continue to move, though.

No they should have to pick every time whether they want to be in follower mode or discovery mode. Dismissing concerns as “the angry mob” is richly ironic considering the entire objection is that recommendation algorithms seem precisely tuned to foster angry mob dynamics. So yeah it will make the angry mob happy because it will be removing the primary mechanism for inciting angry mobs.

People here know that they have finer controls (which are still not actually that fine and also don’t really make the parameters auditable). The problem is these settings are hidden away in places most people will never look. And also, I stress again, none of this is actually auditable because they treat these as some kind of trade secret special sauce and there’s really no reason society should feel obligated to support or enable this business model.

> considering the entire objection is that recommendation algorithms seem precisely tuned to foster angry mob dynamics.

That actually wasn’t the objection in the article we’re discussing at all.

The objection is that recommendation algorithms show people more content they want to view, which leads vulnerable people (kids in this case) to consume more content.

More of what they want to view by showing a feed of largely inflammatory content that targets easily risible emotions that encourage commenting and interacting, which makes people keep coming back to argue more. The mob dynamics are part of the addiction loop.

I don’t endorse using these apps, but for what it’s worth, Instagram actually does have this feature (tap “instagram” at the top and select “following”). You get a chronological feed with no adds and no reels. Of course they don’t provide an option to make that the default as far as I know.

Yup so all they need to do is only allow that content feed for anyone under X years in some specific countries. Seems like they'll survive this, and it won't even be very expensive to fix.

Reminder that any regulation that depends on age is a trigger forcing ID checks for everyone.

You can’t put a restriction on people under X years without gathering information about everyone’s age. You can’t confirm everyone’s age without some ID check. You can’t do an ID check based on anonymous tokens (too easily shared) so every age check mechanism has some ID revealing step, either to the company or to a 3rd party like a government entity (which will pinky swear they’re not looking at the data).

> I think it would be great if all of these apps had an option to function like you propose: Your feed is a simple view of people you’ve chosen to follow. The end.

This is something EU regulation requires them. Earlier this year the Dutch courts ruled as such, all the way up to appeal. It's just a matter of time before other European courts repeat this ruling.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/dutch-court-upholds...

There is no going back to the 2010 internet unless you confiscate everyone's phones.

Not sure what confiscation would accomplish that regulation couldn’t? I mean we’re all aware that if regulators target TikTok then a new app would pop up and take its place.

But the thing about regulation is that it doesn’t need to be water tight. You can just target a small handful of large players and it will improve the situation in practice. It doesn’t matter if 998/1000 apps use addictive feeds if the largest two apps don’t and they have 90% of users/views.

It’s naive to think that regulation is going to cover the entire global internet.

If you regulated domestic companies out of existence, global options would pop up in their place. You could try to block them all in app stores but people would go to the web views.

I think that's still mostly fine. Youtube is already not an app but a web site (It has apps too but I think it's less app centric than e.g. instagram).

Obviously we need the ability to regulate also global options. Typically if these actors truly become big, then they have a presence in their "target" countries, such as ad sales.

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